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“Anyone in Iran can buy the New Testament" (Amazing article + Pictures)

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posted on Mar, 11 2011 @ 08:18 PM
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rt.com...


Only a year ago people in the very same church would talk to me without looking back. Now they won’t say a word even though I have official permission. The first time I came to Iran I was working for a newspaper. Now I am working for a television channel. I could see very well how tired the Iranians are of journalists who tell them one thing and then show something completely different.

Don’t be offended. You know, Western television can make even the most harmless footage look as though people are being discriminated against here. Have you ever seen a Christian persecuted in Iran?” a girl asks me, dodging my camera."

Christians took part in the war with Iraq. Have you heard of that war? We have over 100 shahids and more than a 100 people missing. About 30 were heavily wounded and incapacitated. The shahids are martyrs. Have you heard of Christian martyrs?

We have two deputies in the parliament, one from the southern provinces and one from the north,

Do you know what a constitution is?”, he asks.
We have Christian schools, Armenian schools funded by the state. Our church alone has 24 schools in Tehran, and we have kindergartens as well,

We also have our own gym, and the state allocated funds to equip it with a praying room, a namaz-khane.

"Like any other religious community, we are tax exempt. The local authorities are helping us. For example, they arrange food deliveries for the elderly at our hospice. They send in gardeners to tend to our gardens. We get to pay a special electricity fare, just like the mosques,” says the warden.
Our hospice currently accommodates 30 elders, and our canteen caters for them and an additional 60 people. City authorities help us with insurance; they pay for the services of both doctors and chefs. Some doctors help us free of charge, some charge half the price – and they do it out of respect for Christians, that’s the tradition here,” says Emmanuil Shirani


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/de30dae2a122.png[/atsimg]

HERE is a picture gallery of Christians in Iran.

THIS is also a good thread about Iran and its beauty.

With so much hate and poison being spewed lately, especially about Iran and how it is ‘so oppressive’, I thought it would be interesting to show an article of how Christians live happily with representation and state subsidies in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a22e79ab4f90.png[/atsimg]

What Iran's Jews Say


At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn. Over the entrance is a banner saying: “Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan.”

The Jews of Iran remove their shoes, wind leather straps around their arms to attach phylacteries and take their places. Soon the sinuous murmur of Hebrew prayer courses through the cluttered synagogue with its lovely rugs and unhappy plants. Soleiman Sedighpoor, an antiques dealer with a store full of treasures, leads the service from a podium under a chandelier.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9ad39613703f.png[/atsimg]

For all the negative attributes the Western media and governments try and apply to Iran they cannot be further from the truth. While Iran is definitely not a secular and completely tolerant society towards non-Muslims they are accepting and treat the religious minorities with respect. Neither Christians nor Jews that live in Iran feel as though their lives are in danger or that there is any persecution towards them. Even the Christian Priest in the RT article was hesitant to speak with the foreign journalist because his anger at how they spin the news.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fb2b40131eb7.png[/atsimg]

Sometimes Muslims, Jews, and Christians can live together in peace. But we must also remember that most of these Jews and Christians have very deep roots in Iran stretching back centuries. So it is not like Christianity and Judaism are newly introduced to the Islamic Republic and they are not immigrating in.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e08d8adb9d53.png[/atsimg]



posted on Mar, 11 2011 @ 08:23 PM
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Thank you for sharing! Awesome photos.



posted on Mar, 11 2011 @ 08:35 PM
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Thanks for this.

Everyone that has heard Hillary Clinton's war mongering effort needs to see this.



posted on Mar, 11 2011 @ 08:39 PM
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Nothing speaks of peaceful co-existence like a double layer of 10 ft high ultra security steel walls with a remote controlled steel containment gate. There are many places in the US that have such gates, although much less sturdy and imposing in design, we call them prisons. Seems like few pics show the perimeter, most are aimed high for no good purpose other than poor picture composition. Wonder what they call the dhimmi tax, the jizyah, in farsi? After all, if they follow the koran 'religiously' as state policiy, it's a specific commandment in it if you bothered to read it...



posted on Mar, 11 2011 @ 08:49 PM
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Originally posted by FriedrichNeecher
Nothing speaks of peaceful co-existence like a double layer of 10 ft high ultra security steel walls with a remote controlled steel containment gate. There are many places in the US that have such gates, although much less sturdy and imposing in design, we call them prisons.


Or liquor stores on the south side. We could make all kinds of guesses as to why that's there.


Seems like few pics show the perimeter, most are aimed high for no good purpose other than poor picture composition. Wonder what they call the dhimmi tax, the jizyah, in farsi? After all, if they follow the koran 'religiously' as state policiy, it's a specific commandment in it if you bothered to read it...


There is not a single country that institutes the jizya, Neecher. Not Iran, not Jordan, not Algeria, not even Saudi Arabia or Yemen. The Taliban tried to institute it on Afghanistan's Sikh community, but, well, the Sikhs said no and the taliban wisely decided to not push the issue. Sikh history is full of them kicking people's asses. Afghan history is full of delivered asskickings. I cringe in fear at the thought of what an Afghan Sikh might be capable of, don't you?


Are you shocked that Iran isn't following the quran with fundamentalist fervor? I'm not. Iran lives in the 20th century just like the rest of us, after all, despite the lies you get told.



posted on Mar, 11 2011 @ 09:23 PM
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Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
Are you shocked that Iran isn't following the quran with fundamentalist fervor? I'm not. Iran lives in the 20th century just like the rest of us, after all, despite the lies you get told.


Ummm that does not sound right...



posted on Mar, 12 2011 @ 10:29 AM
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reply to post by Misoir
 



No discordance to me of using 21st century means to attain 7th century ends. Different cultures have different logics and differences in perceptions that dont translate to others.
Because some dont choose or admit an outright Jizyah, it's that it's in the koran at all and therefore available as an article of faith. More than one way to extract tribute, which for some is easy enough as calling it something different. Yep some are that way.



posted on Mar, 12 2011 @ 04:21 PM
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It's beautiful to see a country where people from all religions can be equally oppressed


You know, the issue here isn't non-Muslims being oppressed, but elections being rigged, opposition leaders being put under house arrest, protesters being shot and sent to prison and tortured, government executions for "crimes against Islam", etc. That's the oppression.

You're basically just sidestepping the issue. It's as if you're trying to sell a house with a big hole in a the living room by concentrating on how nice the kitchen looks...



posted on Mar, 12 2011 @ 05:43 PM
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Originally posted by Misoir
For all the negative attributes the Western media and governments try and apply to Iran they cannot be further from the truth. While Iran is definitely not a secular and completely tolerant society towards non-Muslims they are accepting and treat the religious minorities with respect.


Erm, not quite.

Iran arrests Baha'is in Bam


Iran's Intelligence Ministry has arrested a number of the followers of the banned Baha'i cult on charges of promoting their perverse beliefs in kindergartens.

“The investigations indicated the existence of an extensive network in which these individuals pursued and carried their various programs upon orders from their central [organization],” Bam Prosecutor Mohammad-Reza Sanjari said on Saturday.

Sanjari added that the detainees promoted their perverse beliefs in a number of kindergartens in Tehran, Kerman and Bam in the form of cultural and educational activities, ISNA reported.



posted on Mar, 14 2011 @ 12:34 AM
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Yes, the Baha'i have been a bit unfairly targeted in Iran. The movement sprang up in Iran, and started out as a branch off from Shi'a Islam, which is probably the reason- while the religious leaders there may be able to "tolerate" other religious faiths that are separate from theirs, it probably irks them that this group is "distorting" what they consider their teachings into something new.

Besides, you can buy a New Testament (and old) in most (probably all except Saudi Arabia? Or maybe you could even buy one in Saudi Arabia? I don't know..while I've been, I never checked) countries in the "muslim" world- I've seen them myself in bookshops in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE, Bahrain, and I know personally that they're available in Malaysia, Indonesia, Iraq (at least I know they were available in bookshops before the war).

Heck, I remember noting that they taught evolution at the highschool level in schools in Egypt! And never mind Bibles, I saw myself that they were selling books by Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris in bookshops in Egypt and Pakistan.
I suppose people find it easy to generalise things, and news media then takes advantage of these things by constantly highlighting certain aspects of a country/culture, until most people think it's common, and make comments like "Yeah? YOU try being a woman in Iran/Pakistan going hungry during Ramadan!".
Which really, is a very silly thing to say. There ARE women in Iran and Pakistan during Ramadan. And throughout the year
. Nobody is going to oppress you if you buy a pack of crisps or a pack of sausages or go to the butchers and buy ingredients for a full meal. It's just that the restaurants are closed during the day (good business sense). You'd have to go home to cook them.

They take take countries like Saudi Arabia (which make up barely 2% of the muslim population of the world), and make judgements on all "muslim" countries and all muslims.



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